Friday, September 18, 2015

When it comes to ice cream sandwiches, nothing is finer (in this Bay Area girl's most humble opinion) than an It's It. These rather notorious cookie and ice cream sandwiches have been around since 1928 and, regrettably, I tend to judge all other similar confections by their standard.

Now admittedly, It's-It has gone somewhat downhill since I was a kid. The ice cream isn't as creamy and the cookies seemed to have shrunk, but I will never forget being a sweaty, hungry 10 year-old girl who was treated to pizza and It's-Its after a continuous stream of disappointing soft ball games. (*Our coach was flaky and cut out on the team right before our big game, taking all of the candy money we earned with her, but that's another story). Smooth, dense chocolate ice cream sandwiched by two, chewy oatmeal cookies and dipped in dark chocolate ... I can almost taste it.

Anyhow, recently I was cajoled into trying a new ice cream sandwich that New Orleans Ice Cream Co. just launched this June dubbed (as one might expect) the "Po'Boy." Similar in size to the It's It, the Po'Boys are made with the company's own Creole cream cheese or vanilla bean ice creams delicately squashed between two chocolate cookies and dipped in milk chocolate. The quality, flavor and texture of the ice cream was top notch, or "ultra-premium," as you might expect from New Orleans Ice Cream Co. and the cookies were chocolaty and crunchy, offering a pleasing juxtaposition to the creamy ice cream.

The Po'Boys were generally delicious and I look forward to possibly trying them in other flavors like the Coffee & Chicory or Ponchatoula Strawberry if they decide to expand the line. My only request would be to offer them with a dark chocolate coating too, because I just can't seem to shake the ache for an It's It.